To be fair though, we had good vibes going into training camp last season too

I think that was an air of overconfidence, not just from the fans but from the players as well. A lot of people came in thinking they were gonna be carried to a title. Jodie Meeks thought that way, heck Dwight Howard thought he could screw around and do things he had never been strong at rather than pick and roll because he "expected" the Lakers to eventually win 20 straight so the 'losing' didn't bother him.

Metta went as far as to say that some of the team took Mike Brown for granted and took advantage of D'antoni because they all felt that the winning was just gonna 'happen'.

That's a mentality you cannot go into camp with and it is something you can't go into the season with. That was a major problem, and one of the main issues was that one of our anchors HAD that mentality. And when one of your anchors has the mentality of "oh we'll win 20 straight eventually etc" they lack effort and use the early losses to work on stuff they personally want to do, rather than what's best for the team.

There's none of that BS this year in the air or even in our players and it also seems the 'stress' of keeping Dwight here is no longer apparent and there is no shift in the locker room in terms of Dwight 'not caring' if we lost cause we'll 'win 20 eventually' and Kobe's mentality of 'every game matters'

This year there are guys on the team who do have something to prove, who are being counted out, who are being spit on basically by their pundits.

There's none of that 'we're so obviously gonna win a championship' air of arrogance on the players. They may finally play with a chip on their shoulders like the teams that always play them play with. And I'd look forward to it.